1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an automotive headlamp apparatus comprising a swivel mechanism swiveling the direction of a light distribution of a lamp unit to right and left.
2. Description of the Related Art
Automotive headlamp apparatuses comprising swivel mechanisms swiveling the directions of light distributions of lamp units to right and left, have been conventionally known. In such an automotive headlamp apparatus, a lamp unit is mounted in a manner in which the lamp unit can be swiveled to right and left relative to a lamp body with the swivel axis of the lamp unit being pivotally supported by a bracket and the bracket being fixed to the lamp body.
An Adaptive Front-lighting System (AFS) has been proposed in which the illumination direction of a headlamp can be changed so as to illuminate, while driving on a curved road, the travelling direction of a vehicle by using the swivel mechanism. Further, in Japanese Patent Publication Application No. 2008-94127 and DE 10 2007 045 150, an ADB (Adaptive Driving Beam) system has been proposed in which glare is prevented by changing the illumination direction of high beam so as to exclude a leading vehicle by detecting the leading vehicle with an image photographed by a camera being processed.
Each of the aforementioned AFS and ADB is effective when a vehicle is in a particular state. However, if both systems are mounted in a vehicle, illumination direction angles (the angle is referred to as a “swivel angle”) of a headlamp in both the systems are sometimes different from each other. In such a case, it becomes a problem which angle should be adopted.